Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/257

244 tail is moderate and even. The tarsi and toes are short and strong, the outer toe united at the base to its fellow by a membrane; the hind toe small, elevated, and placed on one side; the claws are short and blunt.



These singular birds of snow-white plumage are found on the dreary and iron-bound shores around Cape Horn, or on the solitary islands and rocks of the Antarctic Ocean. They have been met with by southern voyagers at a great distance from any land, and are supposed to rest and feed on sea-weeds and other refuse matter cast up on the icebergs of those remote seas. They frequent